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According to the latest Pew report, A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users:

Fully 85% of American adults use the internet or cell phones - and most use both. Many also have broadband connections, digital cameras and video game systems. Yet the proportion of adults who exploit the connectivity, the capacity for self expression, and the interactivity of modern information technology is a modest 8%.

Fully half of adults have a more distant or non-existent relationship to modern information technology. Some of this diffidence is driven by people’s concerns about information overload; some is related to people’s sense that their gadgets have more capacity than users can master; some is connected to people’s sense that things like blogging and creating home-brew videos for YouTube is not for them; and some is rooted in people’s inability to afford or their unwillingness to buy the gear that would bring them into the digital age.

These findings come from the Pew Internet Project’s typology of information and communication technology (ICT) users. The typology categorizes Americans based on the amount of ICTs they possess, how they use them, and their attitudes about the role of ICTs are in their lives. Ten separate groups emerge in the typology.

The report identifies these ten typologies as: elite technology users (31% of American adults, including “omnivores,” “connectors,” ‘lackluster veterans,” and “productivity enhancers”); middle-of-the-road technology users (20%, including “mobile centrics” and “connected but hassled”); and, those with few technology assets (49%, including “inexperienced experimenters,” “light but satisfied,” “indifferents,” and those who are “off the network.”).

Where do you fit in among information and communication technology users according to Pew’s typologies? Take the Pew Internet Project ’s quiz at: www.pewinternet.org/quiz. Where do your learners fit in? What are some possible educational implications of this report?

Soources:

A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users - press release
A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users - full report

Interested in how Jewish teens are using technology to explore their lives? Take a look at the March 30, 2007 supplement, Fresh Ink for Teens: In Your Facebook, published by the New York Jewish Week. This issue includes several articles by teens on their experiences with technology-based communications.

On another end of the age scale, baby boomers and their parents are among the fastest growing consumers of video games, according to the New York Times article, “Video Games Conquer Retirees,” March 30, 2007. A customer survey by PopCap Games cited in the article found that “71 percent of its players were older than 40, 47 percent were older than 50, and 76 percent of PopCap players were women.”

In addition, corporations are increasingly turning to games and simulations for training and development. It will be interesting to see how these arenas continue to grow and how the educational community reframes its ideas and biases about what learning is, how people learn, and what tools they use to support this endeavor.